Something You Should Know
Powerful Ways to Regulate Your Emotions & What Laughter Does for You
12 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What do children remember most about their parents?
Today on Something You Should Know... What do kids think of their parents after the parenting is all over? Then, how to regulate your emotions. It's not all in your head. There are other ways.
For instance... There is a lot of data out there to suggest that drinking water and staying hydrated is something that affects our emotional life. That when we get dehydrated, we are more emotionally reactive.
Also, is it true that you shouldn't let your gas tank get below a quarter of a tank? And understanding laughter, what it is, how it works, and what it does for us.
This is why I love laughter. It's so fun to be locked in a moment with your friend where you are laughing so hard that you're crying.
Chapter 2: How can you effectively regulate your emotions?
That creates these memories that you then think about and talk about for years and become this core of your identity.
All this today on Something You Should Know.
the regency era you might know it as the time when bridgerton takes place or it's the time when jane austen wrote her books the regency era was also an explosive time of social change sex scandals and maybe the worst king in british history vulgar history's new season is all about the regency era the balls the gowns and all the scandal listen to vulgar history regency era wherever you get podcasts
Something you should know. Fascinating intel.
Chapter 3: What role does hydration play in emotional regulation?
The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.
You know, being a parent, something I've thought about, and I'm sure every parent thinks about, is when your kids are grown, when the parenting is all over, what will your kids think of you? And that's what we're going to start with today on this episode of Something You Should Know. I'm Mike Carruthers. Hi and welcome.
So when you're all done parenting and your kids grow up, they leave the nest and all the dust has settled, what will they remember about you? Well, according to an article on the Time Magazine website, here's what really matters. The times you made them feel safe or unsafe. Those would be the times you chased away the monster under the bed.
But kids feel unsafe when they see their parents lose their temper. Those memories stick. The times you gave them your undivided attention. Kids measure love primarily by our attentiveness to them. The times you stop what you're doing to have a tea party or go outside to throw a ball. Those will be memories etched in their minds and hearts forever. The way you interact with your spouse.
You are the model for what a relationship looks like. Your words of affirmation or criticism. Their identity and self-worth are molded largely by your words.
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Chapter 4: Why is laughter considered beneficial for health?
And traditions. Kids have a deep need for predictability. They will cherish family traditions. So you really should have some. And that is something you should know. Life has a way of serving up emotional ups and downs for all of us. That part's not up for debate. But what is often misunderstood is where those emotions actually come from and how much control we really have over them.
When you look at the science of emotion, it turns out that regulating how you feel isn't just a matter of willpower or thinking positive. The everyday choices you make, how you sleep, what you eat, how you spend your time, even the routines you follow can either support emotional balance or quietly sabotage it. So how does this all work?
And what are some simple practical ways to feel better, sometimes faster than you might even expect? Here to explain is Dr. Ryan Martin. He's Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences and Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. And he is author of a couple of international bestsellers, Why We Get Mad and How to Deal with Angry People.
His latest book is called Emotion Hacks, 50 Ways to Feel Better Fast. Hi, Ryan. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hey, thanks for having me.
I'm really excited to talk with you today.
So first of all, explain what you mean by emotion hacks, what they are and how they work. I think that's a good place to start here.
yeah so there are lots and lots and lots of little things we can do that will have a big impact on our emotional well-being and so i think sometimes people think well in order to feel happier or to feel less sad or to feel less scared or less angry or whatever i need some sort of big life change and that might be true for some people that they would benefit from a big life change
But a lot of times the answers to our emotional wellness or our emotional well-being is to make lots of or even just a handful of little changes to adjust our sleep, to spend more time in nature, to socialize more, to think about our thoughts, to think about the situations we're putting ourselves in and so on. And when we make those little changes, we can see this really big, profound impact.
And so give me an example of how that would work, just so we're not talking in the abstract here, just to get real concrete, just pick an example and lay it out for me.
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Chapter 5: What makes something funny according to laughter theories?
But those moments where it just catches you off guard seem to be the toughest moments.
Sometimes situations just sneak up on us, highly emotional situations that we weren't prepared for. A lot of times, though, these situations don't sneak up on us. We can see them coming, or at least we know they are potentially going to happen. So I can predict with 100% certainty that at some point in my life, I'm going to get caught in traffic again.
And because I know that, I can think now when I'm in a clear state of mind how I want to handle that when it happens. In doing so, I get better at it just by sort of rehearsing it in my mind, practicing that out, thinking through that. And we can actually do this with interpersonal conflict. We can do this in a host of ways.
We can think through these things and practice for them so that when they happen, we've essentially rehearsed it. And that makes it far easier in the moment when it's happened. And then the other part is the reflecting back on it and doing that honest assessment that I mentioned before. What parts of this should I have done differently or what parts of this could I have done differently?
And by doing that, we're essentially doing it's another form of rehearsal where we're better able to to handle that in the future. Because then once we've had that rehearsal, once we've kind of gone through that, we can now later on when we actually do find ourselves in those moments, we are prepared for that.
And we can, you know, maybe it's something where people have a mantra that they use, which is one recommendation I have for people is like pick a mantra, something that you say to yourself in those tough moments, and then remember to say it. Like what? Like what's an example of that? night.
Yeah, so the mantra I use, and one of the things I really encourage people to do is put a lot of thought into what their mantra is.
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Chapter 6: How can laughter strengthen social connections?
But the mantra I use is do the next right thing. And that is my way of giving myself some grace for the fact that I may have made mistakes in the past, but acknowledging that I'm always trying to do the right thing. And when I face a negative experience, I can remind myself, okay, this is your moment to do whatever is the right thing.
One of the things that happens for, I think, for a lot of people is that when things, emotional things happen, there's a tendency to think the worst, that this is the end of the world, that this is going to lead to more bad things. How do you stop that spiral downward where here's something that isn't great and now it's going to just get worse and worse and worse?
Yeah, so the name we use for that a lot of times is catastrophizing. And it's when we just blow things way out of proportion. And one of the first things, and I will tell you, I do think there's something to be said for people just needing a moment to spiral. And that's maybe OK, especially if you've sort of got the benefit of time on your side to sort of run through that.
I actually think one of the things we sometimes do with people in our lives when they're spiraling or when they're catastrophizing is we try to tell them too quickly, OK, calm down, relax. It's not that bad. And all of that feels really minimizing. And so I think it's okay to just take a moment to sort of let that spiral as long as you can pull it back in relatively quickly.
And once you've had that moment, I think that's when you start to potentially ask yourself two questions. The first question is, how bad is this really? And once you're in a little bit more reasonable frame of mind, you can start to ask yourself, like, truly, what are the very real consequences of this?
And then start to think through almost like a checklist of, okay, it's going to mean this, it's going to mean this, and it's going to mean this. The other thing you can do is start to ask yourself, how can I mitigate those consequences? What is the thing I can do to try and solve this? And now all of a sudden that spiral becomes empowering.
That spiral becomes a, okay, so I actually have some power here to fix some of these things. And even if it's just a little bit of power, even if there isn't a ton I can do, it's still better, I think, for people to take a little bit of ownership in the solution than to let it go.
What are some of the other... Because I hadn't heard about hydration affecting your thoughts and your mood and all that. What are some of the other ones that you didn't mention that people might not be aware of?
Yeah, so there's a couple biggies that I really, really like. One is actually the importance of spending time in nature. And so spending some time... On a walk in nature, honestly, it even just can work if you're not in a place where you're surrounded by nature. It can even work to watch nature videos or to look out a window and just see some green space. And
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Chapter 7: What are some practical ways to improve emotional well-being?
I mean, other animals don't really laugh, not the way we do. So what is laughter exactly? Why do we enjoy it so much? Why does it seem to be such a uniquely human behavior? And what role does it actually play in how we connect, create, and relate to one another? Here with some answers is Christopher Duffy.
He's a comedian, television writer, host of the TED podcast, How to Be a Better Human, and he's author of a book called Humor Me, How Laughing More Can Make You Present, Creative, Connected, and Happy. Hi, Christopher. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, Mike. Thanks so much for having me. Sure. So why laughter? Why did you pick this as a topic to say, well, let's look a little deeper?
Chapter 8: Is it true that driving with low fuel is harmful to your car?
Well, I mean, the first and most honest reason is because laughing is really fun. I mean, this is what I think of as like a good day is if I can laugh really hard. So that's the first reason why I was really interested in laughter. And then the second kind of a little bit deeper reason is because I really feel like as I look around at
the world and people that I know and just my own day to day experience, it just felt like there's this real missing piece where things are very serious and heavy and there's not a lot of social value these days placed on lightness and laughter and the connection and joy that can come from having a good sense of humor.
I feel like people kind of either take it for granted or don't think it's very important. And I think it is so important.
Does everybody laugh? It seems like, you know, babies laugh, so it must be something we're born with.
It is it's universal. It's across cultures. It's across continents. And it is it's really fundamentally important. So there's clearly a reason why we do it. But it serves a really important purpose in our lives as a way of creating social bonds, as a way of relieving tension and creating group identities, too.
I think that's one of the evolutionary ideas is that that's why we started to laugh and joke is to create in-group identities and to understand who was in and who was out of the group.
Yeah, that's what's so fascinating is it does seem that laughter is a group activity. I mean, yeah, you can laugh when you're by yourself, but it's a lot easier. It seems more natural to laugh in a group. It just does. I mean, the same movie you watch at home.
on your TV by yourself might be funny, but if you watch it in a theater with a lot of people, you're much more likely to laugh at the funny parts.
That's definitely true. That's not just your experience. There's a lot of science that I came across from researchers who study laughter that shows that that is absolutely the case, that laughter occurs much more frequently when we're in social settings. And also, just aside from the whole science part of it, this is why I love laughter. I mean, it's so...
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